1. Field
The present invention generally relates to backup systems for mobile devices, and more specifically providing a distributed and transparent way of backing-up content from a mobile device to other devices.
2. Background
Mobile devices, such as cellular/mobile telephones, personal digital assistants (PDA), pagers, mobile computers, etc., are widely used for many types of applications that store information on the mobile devices. For example, mobile phones may store contact information (e.g., phone numbers, addresses, etc.), text messages, pictures, and other types of information. As a result of their expanding capabilities and features, users have become dependent on such mobile devices as part of their daily lives and/or business. Whether it be contact information, pictures, electronic files, electronic mail, or other types of information, the information stored in such mobile devices has become increasingly important to users. Thus, it has become increasingly important to backup such information to minimize losses and inconveniences in case the mobile device is lost, stolen, or malfunctions.
However, backing up information from mobile devices is not an easy task. Many mobile devices, such as mobile phones, do not provide a convenient way to backup the information stored therein. Additionally, those mobile devices that provide backup mechanism often require that the mobile device be physically coupled to a computer and that the user initiate the backup procedure. This is at minimum inconvenient and relies on the user to remember to backup the information.
Additionally, with expanded features and capabilities, mobile devices often include significant storage capacity of several megabytes to hundreds of gigabytes. Backing up such large amount of information would require a significant amount of time, thereby inconveniencing a user even more. Even if a user decides to backup information from a mobile device, a significant amount of storage space may be needed from the user's computer to store such information.
The different types of mobile devices and varying communication interfaces also makes it difficult to provide a convenient backup mechanism that can be implemented on various types of mobile devices. Certain types of wireless interfaces have limited capacity, ranging from tens of kilobits per second for a typical commercial cellular network to tens of megabit per second for a wireless LAN network. Coupled with the large storage space on many mobile devices and limited battery life, it becomes physically impossible for a user to back-up all the information stored on a mobile devices at once.